Lancaster County PA Realty Check: How I Fell In Love With "Elmo" (My GPS)

I've owned a Garmin Nuvi 660 GPS (global positioning system) for several months now.  I can't believe how I ever lived without this little gem!  Beautiful bright color screen, accurate to within about 20 feet, it talks to you in a male or female voice with a variety of accents and languages which you can choose - what more could you want?

I've talked to people who complained about the accuracy and idiosyncrasies  of other brands.  My Nuvi not only tells me where to turn, but how far ahead the turn  is and what the street name is.  The last feature is called text to speech, or TTS.  Based on the map and satellite information it gets, it will read street names and routes to you.  Since its pronunciation is based on an algorithm, it sometimes gives some interesting mispronunciations (for instance it pronounces the first syllable of "Buchanan" as rhyming with the word "much"), but if there's any question you can ask it to repeat itself.

It also gives me the estimated time of arrival at my destination, and a different screen shows a list of all the turns I will make. Other extras which I have not even had the time to explore yet are the MP3 player, audio book reader, bluetooth capability and an FM traffic warning system!

My Nuvi has saved me gasoline and hours of lost time in showing homes, especially in areas outside my normal neighborhoods. I've come to rely on it.  As a matter of fact, calling it "it" somehow feels wrong - it sometimes seems so human I had to name him - "Elmo", as it happens!

I named "Elmo" after St. Elmo, a fourteenth-century monk who became known as the protector of sailors, and who kept their ships from getting lost (get the connection?)   When sailors would see a halo of lightning playing around the ship's mast, they named the phenomenon "St. Elmo's Fire" and considered it a good omen of St. Elmo protecting them.

The Nuvi 660 is a little pricey, but if anything ever happened to it, I would  get one again in a New York minute.  Incidentally, extended warranties are available very reasonably.

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